And since I'm still up...

Here is a video of Beck reading The Giving Tree. Over the past few months he has gone from a good reader to an amazing reader. I can hand him pretty much any kids book and he can read straight through it with little or no help. We are really happy to have boys that love books as much as we do!

Fall

Autumn is finally here, although some days you wouldn't really know it. Having lived in the North for 27 years of my life, I consider anything above 60 degrees to be Summer. Today it was 75. Despite the warm weather, the leaves still die and fall and our back yard was getting out of control.

 

 

Our poor sandbox was decimated by the monsoon summer we had.

 

Here is a picture of Izzy Lizard just chillin' on the speaker outside near the door to the deck. He is one of our many new lizard friends who have decided to live on our porch for some reason. We don't mind them at all, but it means we have to open and shut the back door very quickly. We've already had several sneak in, and one terrible (gross) tragedy.

 

                                                                         

 

We finally broke down and bought an electric leaf blower.

Still not perfect, but much better.

Things can get pretty routine when you have little kids, so we are always on the lookout for new places to go, especially parks. Last weekend we found a new one not too far from our house.

 

 

 

Today we met up with my friend Kat and her son who is in Baylor's class (the Huggers) at daycare. 

 

 

Beck is really sweet with little kids. He has told us he wants to be a baby doctor when he grows up. He also wants to be a farmer. 

The ice-cream man came rolling by the park, and Beck scored a treat. Apparently it was blue.

                                                                            

Sweet Potato Chicken Curry

Rob and don't usually have time to cook elaborate meals, but every now and then we find a recipe to add to our favorites collection. This recipe for Sweet Potato Curry was in this month's issue of Cooking Light, and it is super delicious! Interestingly, the recipe was sent in by a woman who also went to UW-Madison, and was inspired to create this dish based on one that she had eaten as a college student at a place she described as a "hole-in-the-wall Nepalese restaurant" (Himal Chuli? They never had anything this good.) We have made this 3 times now, and I'm making it again tomorrow. Here is the recipe:

2 Teaspoons Curry Powder (we use Hot Curry Powder from Penzeys)
1 Teaspoon ground coriander
1 Teaspoon ground tumeric
1/2 Teaspoon salt
1/2 Teaspoon black pepper
1/4 Teaspoon ground red pepper (or just use Hot curry pwder)
1 Bay Leaf
1 1/2 Teaspoons olive oil
1 1/2 lbs skinless, boneless chicken breast, cut into 1-inch pieces (or omit this if feeding a vegetarian)
1 1/2 cups vertically sliced onion
1 1/2 Teaspoons minced peeled fresh ginger
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 (14-ounce) can fat-free chicken broth (or vegetable broth if your vegan sister is coming to town)
1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained
2 cups (1/2 inch) cubed peeled sweet potatao
3/4 cup drained and rinsed chickpeas
1/2 cup frozen green peas (we have skipped this everytime, but it would probably be good with)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1. Combine curry powder, coriander, turmeric, salt, pepper, and bay leaf in small bowl.
2. Heat oil in a large dutch oven over medium high heat. Add chicken to pan; saute 5 minutes or until browned, stirring occasionally. Remove chicken from pan. Reduce heat to medium. Add onion to pan; cook 10 minutes or until tender, stirring frequently. Increase heat to medium high; return chicken to pan. Cook 1 minute, stirring occasionally. Stir in ginger and garlic; cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Add curry powder mixture; cook 2 minutes, stirring constantly . Add broth, tomatoes and potato and bring to a boil (*note- the recipe says to leave out the sweet potato until the last 1/2 hr, but we found that doing this makes them hard and not fully cooked). Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 1 hr. Stir in chickpeas. Cook, uncovered, 30 minutes. Add peas; cook 5 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Remove from heat; stir in lemon juice. Discard bayleaf. Yield: 7 serving (serving size 1 cup). Serve over Basmati rice.

                                                                         

Yes, cooking this will make your whole house smell like a cheap apartment in Brooklyn, but it is totally worth it. Enjoy!

Stolen Pictures

While my sister was here over Halloween, I let her be in charge of picture taking while I wrangled the boys. Here are some pictures I stole from her Facebook page:

  
After spending the day together shopping and eating lunch at Bottletree cafe, Peg and I went to our daycare center's Fall Festival. They had treats and activities for the kids, but mostly they just ran wild.
                                

 

 

They has a little face-painting area and 2 of the teachers were painting things like bats and pumpkins on the kid's faces. One teacher told Bay that she was going to paint a pumpkin on his face and then proceeded to paint a red pumpkin. I was very confused, they actually had orange paint,  but I didn't say anything.

 

 

The boys thought it was more fun to steal the pins than to wait in line to bowl.

 

 

Normally they have two separate playgrounds for the different age groups, Baylor was thrilled to get a chance to play on the "big kids playground"

 

Things were getting a little crazy so we headed out to the park near our house to work off some more sugar before dinner.

 

 

Some more left over pics...

 

 

 

 

I love the next picture, we didn't plan this...

 

Beck is becoming an excellent builder. He spend large chunks of his time building elaborate castles, bridges and obstacles. Please forgive the lack of pants, clothes don't stay on very long in our house, even when there is company.

 

 

 

                                            

                         

All Hallows' Eve

Anyone who knows me well knows that Halloween is by far my favorite holiday. Thanksgiving and Christmas are fine, but who doesn't love a holiday that revolves entirely around dressing up, partying and free candy? In my younger days I would spend literally months in search of the right costume. This year I was extra excited because my sister Peg was coming to visit from Rochester and it was Beck's 1st time trick-or-treating. Rob was out of town on a long-due trip up to Wisconsin to go to the UW-Purdue game with some friends of ours. Peg and I had a great time and, as usual, had many bouts of giggles. I took off of work on Friday so that her and I could enjoy some time together without the kids. We even managed to find the elusive Peanut Depot which I have previously attempted to find on 3 separate occasions, with no luck. Who would hide a peanut shop underneath a bridge in the middle of the city? It was worth the hunt, the peanuts are amazing. We tried some cajun-style boiled, but in the end stuck with plain salted.

Beck was really excited about going trick-or-treating, it was all he talked about for days. He kept changing his mind about what he wanted to be, but in the end decided that he wanted to be a skeleton again, like last year. I was happy with that, since it meant little money or effort on my part. I did do a little face paint on him, which ended up looking much creepier than I originally intended.

 

 Baylor was originally supposed to be a lion- he rejected that idea outright. I tried several time to have him try on his costume, but that only elicited tears and screams, so in the end he just went as himself.

 Maybe next year.

We stopped by our friends Harrison and Katy's for some pre-trick-or-treat chili and snacks (and glasses of wine for mom), and then headed down a couple of blocks to a street know as the "Halloween Street."  This street is amazing, every house on the street does up wild decorations and everyone tries to outdo each other. Kids come from all over to trick-or-treat on this street, they even block off both ends and have police guard.

 

                                                                                  

This whole thing was kind of like Mardi Gras for children.

This house had a Peter Pan theme and was actually showing the movie on their front yard on a projection screen.

           
               This robot girl is the niece of a co-worker of mine and happens to live on the Halloween street.
                                                                               

                                                              
                                           This little guy was awesome.
                                                                     

All in all Beck made out like a bandit, we are definitely going back next year. 

Thanks for coming to visit, Aunt Peg!